Franzè & Evans London, Yuzu Meringue Tart

Thursday, I made my first attempt to obtain JPH's new Longchamp Chocolat, which is dark chocolate accented by pistachio in the coating. No luck at Isetan, but it was only its second day. For running, I went out for about an hour and did the planned running of neighborhood course loops, confirming my knowledge of the Kita-Aoyama central and Mianmi-Aoyama north loops, and the clockwise direction of the Kasumigaoka-machi--Kita-Aoymama loop (which is long, but is just a big loop with streets to cross). So far, I've reconfirmed only 26 km of loops, so a lot of work yet to do, but I'm still planning to try to do my first full run of a new 35 km loop plus the neighborhood course access route to it on Sunday.

I was considering resting Friday, based on sore feet in the morning and big plans for Sunday. However, I failed a second time to get the new JPH cake, so instead I started out for the Marunouchi/Ginza area to try other outlets. By that point my feet felt reasonably okay and I didn't try to run fast. Lots of cakes still at the Marunouchi JPH chocolate bar, but not that one (they had greater variety than I expected, though). After a brief detour to see whether Viron had any new since the first half of January (no), I wend down to Ginza Mitsukoshi, where they were also sold-out. After a similar brief walk to Origines Cacao, I decided that I was will to pay extra (in buying outside Isetan/Mitsukoshi), and ran to Tokyo Midtown. The original route would probably have been okay, but I deviated for lights around Shinbashi and the updated Google route had me going up a steep curved hill where the sidewalk disappeared due to construction and I was left running the street against incoming taxis (though that's a normal legal Tokyo thing, and I passed a walker near where the sidewalk resumed). At this point, it was past 8 pm and Midtown had all of two Longchamp Feuilleté (which I noticed Saturday Ginza Mitsukoshi had labeled as "nouvelle", which is technically true, though it's been in the line-up for over two months by this point and they are clearly working on selling off the current stock). Figuring I might as well finish off the set, I ran to Omotesandou Hills, where they still had an enormous about of cake, but not that one.

When I set out for Omotesandou Hills, I was planning to settle for cake from Lotus, which is a café along the Jinguumae Shopping Road. However, I also have a long list of theoretically quite good shops that I've only had two cakes from that I want to visit again, so I did that instead, Franzè & Evans London being open. I went with the Yuzu Meringue Tart (I've still yet to get anything not meringue from there), which probably closely resembles a lemon meringue pie. It definitely met my needs after the unplanned long run (I didn't have any energy foods prepared, or I would have opening something up around Tokyo Midtown). In a way, I didn't respect its crude appear to my sweet tooth, but on the other hand, I rarely see meringue cream (the topping is still soft), probably because pie and tart shops aren't my thing. In the end, I decided that excellent was a fair evaluation by my standards, so Franzè & Evans London will make the cut.